31 January 2016 1:12 AM

The biggest scandals go on for years because they are so huge that nobody notices them. We stand and watch outrageous things going on, thinking that everything is all right because nobody else is making a fuss.

The new film about the 2008 bank collapse, The Big Short, makes this point perfectly. Anyone who wanted to could see the great lending boom was based on garbage, worthless loans that would never be repaid.

But most people didn’t want to. And even now we shy away from the blatant truth. The film’s makers, realising how easily our attention wanders, hired the Australian actress Margot Robbie to sit in a bathtub, naked except for a few thousand symbolic bubbles, to explain sub-prime mortgages in simple (and very crude) English.

The Big Short’s makers, realising how easily our attention wanders, hired the Australian actress Margot Robbie to sit in a bathtub, naked except for a few thousand symbolic bubbles, to explain sub-prime mortgages in simple (and very crude) English

How I wish I could afford to hire her to explain the equally shocking truth about the vast ‘antidepressant’ scandal that goes on all around us.

But, just as banks and investors were willing – if blinkered – accomplices in the mad folly that ripped the West’s economy to bits eight years ago, many doctors and decent men and women are complicit in the Great Happy Pills Delusion.

Doctors can get plenty of rewards from drug companies for promoting their pills. Invitations to conferences at five-star hotels, with diving, golf and fishing laid on are not unknown. Others are paid to write apparently unbiased articles in medical journals praising a company’s drugs.

But even those who don’t accept this are often relieved to have something, anything, to prescribe to the dozens of unhappy patients who seek their help. If they and the patient believe these pills work, then, in a way, they will. So would inert pills made of chalk, as it happens.

If only Margot Robbie could be hired tp explain the equally shocking truth about the vast ‘antidepressant’ scandal that goes on all around us, in which many decent men and women are complicit

And so the patients, too, are recruited into the ‘antidepressants saved me from misery’ campaign. There’ll be some in every street and workplace, given that more than 53 million prescriptions for these drugs are dispensed in the UK to about four million people every year.

The trouble is that rigorous science, in which they are tested against sugar pills, increasingly doubts that they do work. And, worse still, there is worrying evidence that the side effects of some of these drugs may be very serious indeed.

Now, in the respected pages of the British Medical Journal, comes a stinging report, carefully analysing 70 trials of ‘antidepressants’, which found that some common drugs of this kind actually double the risk of suicide and aggressive behaviour in under-18s.

This, by the way, does not mean that adults are unaffected. The drug companies’ research repeatedly under-reported deaths and episodes of self-harm by tested patients.

A drug that does not really work is one thing. A drug whose users harm themselves (or others) is another.

The vast extent of this problem and the huge sums of NHS money spent on it may make media and politicians think it must be all right. But they thought the same about sub-prime mortgages. And it was not all right. Nor is this.

Our crazy war on savers

In Japan now they are starting to charge people for keeping healthy credit balances in the bank. It is called ‘negative interest’ and is part of a vicious war on savers under way all over the world. It’s pretty intensive here too. Those who voted Tory in 2010 to ‘get Gordon Brown out’ might ponder George Osborne’s relentless Brown-style raids on private pension funds, punishing and robbing dedicated savers with extra taxes, to subsidise Google’s tax breaks.

The same goes for ‘quantitative easing’, designed to push small investors into putting their cash into risky places to get any return at all. Those who refuse have their interest-free bank balances slowly drained by inflation (which is supposed to have disappeared, but hasn’t). How long before there’s ‘negative interest’ too? Destroying the savings and hopes of the middle classes is what, in the end, led to Germany’s gruesome descent into fanatical madness in the 1930s.

It helped put Vladimir Putin in power in Moscow. It is deeply irresponsible politics as well as deeply irresponsible economics.

I think I could just about bear it, even so, if people didn’t keep telling me what a great and righteous Chancellor George Osborne is. It is, once again, a lie so huge that they get away with it.

So now all of us must live in the knowledge that a double murderer, with severe psychiatric problems, is living secretly among us. I defy anyone to say with total assurance that it is safe to let him out. His crime is said to have been horrific. But he has been released into the ‘community’. He is in his 40s, but we cannot know his new name, or his old one, or where he is or what he does.

This is thanks to our ‘Supreme Court’ (the name is itself a lie, for it is not supreme at all, but subject to Parliament and also the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg).

These exalted personages overruled four wiser judges, and common sense. If they have made a terrible mistake, how will they be made to pay for it?

Last week I finally underwent root canal dentistry, the lurking ill-defined horror that lies in wait for the middle-aged. Well, I am here to report that it was nothing like as bad as most of the things I have heard it compared to. And it was far less gruelling, protracted and demoralising than trying to extract an apology for wrongdoing from the BBC, or a Left-wing newspaper, or from a railway company – all activities I have been engaged in during the past few weeks.

Not all Gas and Gaiters

The Archbishop of Canterbury has had a nasty surprise. It follows the Church of England’s decision to publicise, in national media, an unproven claim of child abuse against the long-dead Bishop George Bell, one of the C of E’s few genuinely great men.

Now Justin Welby has had a stonking letter from Bishop Bell’s niece, Barbara Whitley, telling him off. Mrs Whitley,91 and with a mind as sharp as a guillotine, wrote to the Prelate: ‘My uncle was an extremely holy, private man. A deep thinker with many engagements and a loving, helpful wife. I am convinced he would not have done any such thing’.

This must have come as something of a surprise, since the C of E’s bureaucrats had assumed George Bell had no living relatives.

You would have thought Mrs Whitley, herself the daughter of a Bishop, deserved a swift and personal reply. But Archbishop Welby passed the matter to a subordinate. Mrs Whitley has written to him again, protesting that her Uncle’s name is being smeared. I do hope he writes back himself, this time.

If you want to comment on Peter Hitchens, click on Comments and scroll dow

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Mr Hitchens I await the posting of my reply to your question. It is very poor etiquette to request a response then simply ignore it. Or maybe it is your intention to leave the question of my intent hanging thus representing me as someone who's fled the conversation.

I wish to ask Mr Hitchens why he chooses to deliver a polemic on antidepressants such as his piece this weekend. Does it arise from a genuine concern for those who live with mental health problems or is it simply to fill out column inches for which he rewarded quite well by his employer. The evidence from the piece written this weekend would appear to indicate the latter.

***PH writes: I hope to expose, and get others to join in exposing what I regard as one of the major scandals of our age. I never have any shortage of items with which to fill my column and weekly have to leave out much that I would like to discuss. The BMJ report seemed to me to strengthen greatly a case I have been making for some years. Since Mr Solano speculates so unflatteringly on my motives, he will surely not object if i ask him to tell us what his interest is in the matter? I have none, save a desire to tell the truth .****

His writing is in contravention to the standards set out from his own professional union (Responsible Reporting on Mental Health, Mental Illness and Death by Suicide) - referring to anti-depressants as happy pills, and perpetuating stigma by associating mental illness with violence, then compounding the stigma with an attempt to generate fear by using the term "secretly". The ongoing stigmatisation of those living with mental illness is for many the greatest hurdle they face in society today (Mentalhealthcare.org.uk). Furthermore he fails to place details for appropriate support services at the end of the article. Again an expected standard from his own professional union. Mr Hitchens is quite right to question the validity and overuse of psycho-pharmacology (although he is very late to the party, mental health survivors networks have been discussing this for over forty years). However his failure to discuss what the alternatives may be appears to show a lack of research and engagement with the group/s most affected. As a regular reader of this column I have yet to see Mr Hitchens show any support for the wider variety of recovery approaches that exist.

Perhaps Mr Hitchens could use his journalistic prowess to affect a positive change for mental health services of all types, rather than harrying all and sundry from the sidelines without proposing any alternative options. Heaven knows this country's mental health system needs all the help it can get presently.

In the interests of balance would it not be fair to publish the article "Comment on case of George Bell" by the Diocesan Secretary Gabrielle Higgins (a barrister not a journalist) that was published in the Diocese of Chichester Safeguarding Newsletter Winter 2015/16?

In addition, will the Mail on Sunday publish details of all of the civil cases it has settled out of court so that its readers can assess the evidence?

As for the dreadful case of the double murderer released on licence requiring him to continue psychiatric treatment, can anyone say will total assurance that anyone else would not commit similar crimes? It is generally assumed that 1% of the population are psychopaths. That doesn't mean that they are killers, but suppose that 1% of them are. That means there are 6,500 psychopathic killers in Britain and not all are in prison or secure hospitals. Who would guarantee the diagnosis of those 6,500 who could be interned and treated before committing crimes and protecting the rest of us?

As a Christian, does Peter Hitchens believe in the redemption and rehabilitation of prisoners or is that something peculiar to Christians like Michael Gove?

David Taylor (1/2): "...very well said about the photo , for myself after seeing Miss Robbie appear from behind the door in the "Wolf of Wall Street" it took me some time to remember to breath."

Her type has come before, to Eden, & as Helen tending Paris on the Spartan shore; as Venus rising from the sea & Nimue, Lady of the Lake -- yet in her the goddess attains at last the promise of perfection. Woman are formed a little below the angels, but she is of their like.

Men gaze on such beauty & known heaven to be real -- or fall in worship at the idol's feet -- or run maddened throught the streets tearing at their clothes.

How the savage in me longs to fight some prehistoric battle over her, to win her or die in trying. Yet I see us strolling hand in hand through the glades of faeryland. How marvelous it would be to spread a cloak across the mud lest her golden shoes become besmirched. On other day I build a house with gardens running to the sea, & marry her & bring her home & look at her all day.

But how selfish -- such a creature should never waste her loveliness on one man alone. Why else does Hollywood exist? She must be seen, be admired & adored. Perhaps a temple of some kind would be the best, that we might show our devotion in pilgrimages to her shrine.

Doreen - how long ago was your first root canal? If it was a long time and you haven't suffered anything, then maybe the fears are unfounded.

Anonymous - As dental treatments, such as happened to Mr Hitchens, tend to happen as we get older, maybe that is why people who have them are more likely to have age related illnesses? Or is it a more obvious problem that bad teeth and gums mean the person has generally bad health, whether from bad diet or bad genes? Hasn't sugar also been linked to dementia?

Mr Barclay: I couldn't agree more with you about the need for everyone to take personal responsibility for their own financial affairs. If there's one thing I can't stand it's whinging spongers who demand that others foot the bill for their reckless behaviour. That's why there's nothing remotely "judgmental" or "self-righteous" about condemning mega-banks for forcing European and American tax-payer to cough up billions to make up the huge losses bankers incurred through their own irresponsibility.

adeledicnander: "Justification for the unquestioned assumption that the Church ever had any authority or jurisdiction to investigate and arbitrate allegations of "crime" in the first place remains an open question.

The mass media embraced this unquestioned assumption in spades in their response to allegations of child abuse made against Catholic clergy. Many billions of dollars, euros, and sterling have been paid out by Catholic dioceses in compensation for allegations of child abuse made against Catholic priests and religious - many of them long deceased - without any proper investigation of the claims ever having being made. It's perhaps not surprising that modernist liberal Catholics have raised no objection to this abandonment of the most basic due procedures. What's utterly extraordinary however is the way self-styled "traditional Catholic" publications have been just as hostile to anyone who raises the slightest quibble about all of this - their utterly spurious logic being that any allegation made against the evil post-Vatican II Church must, by definition, be true. Such folk may be "traditional" in their liturgical tastes, but they couldn't be more modernist in their contempt for the notion of innocent until proved guilty by a court of law.

I understand the Serotonin explanation is disputed but from my research antidepressants can totally shut off serotonin production in the brain in a significant number of people. Plunging them into the darkest place imaginable in which suicide is the only release. However, knowledge is power.. Because I told my grandmother it was the anti depressants making her feel like this, she stopped and was fine thereafter. She did not need them in the first place, she just told the doctor she was a bit low (that week), as we all are at times.

I see Cameron is still trying to pull the wool over our eyes with this so-called watered down ‘emergency brake’ on in-work benefits

>
Cameron is a leftist and not even English so he is finding it hard to understand the objections of the Right, he thinks we are all just bigots who hate foreigners so as long as he can appear tougher on benefits he will appease the Right, but to me and my friends it is about so much more than that. It is about history, prophecy, the very concept of the nation state as a God given firebreak to foreign alliances. November the 5th, papal plots, elitist Jesuits, socialists, marxists and self governing democracies. When will he understand that?

In my local paper, the Shropshire Star, the MP for Wrekin, Mark Pritchard is reported to say:
i
Mr Pritchard warned: “A decision to isolate Britain from Europe will have significant national security implications.

“Britain’s geo-political wisdom, lauded by the likes of the Netherlands, Poland, Sweden, and many other EU countries, would be silenced.”

>
Mark Pritchard is a Roman Catholic. He has allegiances to a foreign European power. So no surprises there. Damien Green MP (Roman Catholic) is also saying treacherous things about our country and talking it down.

Doreen ". In fact I am quite toothless and I have recently had four Implants and believe that there are many problems associated with those also."

>
Yes there are problems associated with 'implants' (screw-ins), the cost! They are still so expensive. They like to call them "implants" but they are essentially a fake tooth on a screw which they screw into your bone and make huge profit margins on. I think partial dentures and bridges are the safest bet.

As for anti-depressants, I've had two experiences of them. Myself, many years ago, when that was all that was available, they worked for me, and without being too melodramatic I was suicidal at the time. Then a few years ago, my daughter. Then as now the best treatment seems to have been counselling, but then as now there wasn't enough money in the system to provide the service immediately, so she took them for a short time until she could get an appointment. Whether it was the pills or the placebo effect, who knows? But they worked for us. Of course nobody would advocate using them for very long periods, and I know the Government keeps saying that they will put more money into mental health, but when?

I look at the amounts of money described in Mr Hitchens article and the others linked in it and am staggered , there is the answer to many of the questions posed by the article I would think . Snake Oil Salesmen is a useful description , the latest concoction is described as a universal panacea , " how is it with stains" People can be gullible as they will trust a professional person to tell them what is best for them . If a person is in some pain or distress and a Doctor says "take these" most people will
I do not know if the same position exists in Britain where doctors can be paid to use a particular drug , I would hope not . The trouble shooter programme on the TV highlighted a problem that caused the presenter a noted businessman . some problem , was this , the NHS is the biggest bulk purchaser of drugs in Europe probably the world , yet pays top price for many of its drugs and much of its Medical Equipment , Which is wrong , even I can work that out.
Happy Pills , Trick Cyclist are shorthand phrases for the general public to quickly work out what is being discussed , read Spike Milligans autobiography about Bomb Happy Soldiers ,(his words , himself included) being sent to recover at a camp on the slopes of Mount Etna very funny.
Lawrence Bond , very well said about the photo , for myself after seeing Miss Robbie appear from behind the door in the "Wolf of Wall Street" it took me some time to remember to breath .

*** “As spending power shifted from the middle-class to the working-class in the Thatcher and Blair years, unfortunately middle-class money habits and especially care for financial solvency didn't make the trip. The more that credit was extended to the working classes the quicker they snapped it up and spent it in the shops.

Yes, that is certainly a large part of the situation.

Where I would disagree is the focus on the working-class. It is not just that the working-class has been given more spending power (through debt), although that is certainly part of the situation, but that also the middle-classes have themselves abandoned the values that defined them. So much so that I would say the middle-class has been all but killed off; both by the spread of profligacy and the abandonment of good husbandry in their own ranks (Bobos, and those who follow them) and by the assumption of middle-class identity by people who confuse spending power with social class (Nouveau Riche, “Mondeo-man” 'Wannabes', etc).

*** “Thus we have the illusion of consumer-driven growth, but in fact it is debt-fueled growth, and we all know how that ends up.” ***

Yes, I certainly agree wholeheartedly there.

The fact that so few recognise that the economic “growth” of the post-war era has been nothing more than a bubble fuelled by debt (first by government borrowing, post-Breton Woods, then later by private credit, Post-Thatcher), is an indictment upon our politicians and journalists who so rarely speak of it.

I'd say its origin is earlier than both of these though; if you look at the role of Edward Bernays across the pond in the early 20th century, you'll see the first shoots of this attitude.

Apparently there is to be a fun ironic musical soon on the London stage celebrating Jeremy Corbyn and Diane Abotts motorcycle holiday in East Germany in the late 70s.Viewers of Channel Fours current Deutchland 83 can get a good glimpse of their holiday destination.Basically it could be best described as Nazism lite,the number of victims smaller but the consequences up to and including death just as dire.A state that basically owned its citizens and which actually sold them and killed them when it thought necessary. The fact that so many on the British left associated themselves with this state seems to me a legimate cause for concern and I am suprised that nobody has shone a more detailed spotlight upon it.Of course if anyone does no doubt we would hear screams of McCarthyism from the relevent quarters.

Sam Wren.
Thank you for your post of 31st January 2016 at 08:54am -
for one of the wisest posts I have seen on this blog.
May I add 2 points?
1.
When buying furniture, buy the best mattress you can. As you pointed out, more sleep……..
2.
When cooking, cut out the salt – you will get enough without adding any. Use lemon juice. You will feel even better.

I read, with interest, Peter Hitchins article regarding the over prescribing of anti depressants. There is another aspect to all of this, some while ago I had a spate of headaches, following a consultation with my GP, I was prescribed Amitriptyline, a well known anti depressant.
When I questioned this my GP told me that anti depressants work on pain by blocking the pain channels. I tried them for 3 days and felt so "out of it" I stopped taking them, the headaches resolved on their own.
My mother, at 92 years of age, was also prescribed anti depressants (for restless leg syndrome) she had a similar reaction to me and stopped taking them also.
It makes me question how many people with chronic conditions are on these medications? A scary thought.

"With regard to the Bishop Bell affair, it occurs to me that if the Church of England had not publicised the allegation, sooner or later some journalist would have found out about it, and then it would have been publicised, along with a story about a 'cover-up' - and that could have been far more damaging. It's really one of those "damned if you do and damned if you don't" situations, isn't it?"
- Posted by: Persephone | 31 January 2016 at 02:55 PM

The crucial difference being that there would have been no reputational damage felt by the close family of the late Bishop Bell at the instigation of the Church.

Two wrongs don't make a right.

Justification for the unquestioned assumption that the Church ever had any authority or jurisdiction to investigate and arbitrate allegations of *crime* in the first place remains an open question.

"It is, yes, but this is part and parcel of an age that is discarding deferred gratification in favour of instant gratification. And so, savings are being replaced by credit and loans."

Yes, I think this is correct. As spending power shifted from the middle-class to the working-class in the Thatcher and Blair years, unfortunately middle-class money habits and especially care for financial solvency didn't make the trip. The more that credit was extended to the working classes the quicker they snapped it up and spent it in the shops. Thus we have the illusion of consumer-driven growth, but in fact it is debt-fueled growth, and we all know how that ends up.

The working-class is not in the habit of saving and investing. Its habit is: wages in, wages spent. You can hardly blame them since up till relatively recently there was hardly enough money to pay the rent - it was always rent in those days - and put food on the table. But times have changed, capitalism won and socialism lost, and while the working class is now prosperous, the saving and investing habit is lagging well behind.

How I hate all this information on root canals having had many of them over the years. Scares the life out of me. My question is what is a person to do. If I hadn't had them I would be toothless. In fact I am quite toothless and I have recently had four Implants and believe that there are many problems associated with those also.

Good grief! Now even Peter Hitchens is using bare female flesh as click-bait. Peter, if you must use sex to promote your work, and in the interests of equality, could we perhaps have a shirtless shot of yourself next time? It's only fair to your many female readers, after all.

I say, looks as though the warning to religious bores should jolly well be extended to include dentistry bores. If this keeps up we common-or-garden everyday bores shall hardly get a look-in, what? Anyway, i don't see that root canal treatment is any more pernicious than bubble bath; without same the world would be a better place, what?

I am not a banker myself (despite the surname) and, even when things were going well, the Methodist in me did not much like the City bankers' massive salaries and the shallowness with which many spent it.

But I have to say that the constant blame thrown at them for the crash is also too judgmental and self-righteous for my liking. What about the borrowers, those who took out loans they knew they had little chance of repaying? They must also surely shoulder some blame?

I remember TV talk at the time of crash as to why our bankers were no longer Captain Mainwaring types. Well personally I would love it if they were. But you just know that if bankers were like Mainwaring, many in the country would go nuts, especially if denied easy credit.

A chap where I worked had a sister who had clocked up an enormous amount in credit cards (I seem to remember it as larger than many people’s gross annual salary). She couldn’t pay it back and ended up on a repayment schedule of some miniscule amount (£1 a month or something like that). Yes I’m annoyed that the system allowed her to get to that situation. But I also disapprove of her casual attitude too. You can blame the bankers or the chancellors but they come from our country and our culture. I think that general materialism in our society needs to be addressed and not just taken out on the banks.

There was a Michael Moore film/documentary which featured an American family being kicked out of their home of 20 years, it being repossessed by the bank. Obviously this was very sad. But I couldn't help wonder why, if people had taken out a 25 year repayment mortgage, there would not be little of it left after 20 years (maybe the US mortgage system is different to ours?). It got me further wondering if they had perhaps taken out a subsequent loan (ie increased their mortgage) in line with rising house prices? Their financial situation was never explained in the documentary. It was more a sob story. But if people were prepared to play the market using their house as an asset, they can't then go on about it being their home in that way. Maybe that was not true of them. But it must have been true of others.

And where was the gratitude in the UK for the banks for helping us out of the early 1990s recession and giving us 15 good economic years between then and 2007? Sure they were in it for the money. But what of the “carpet-baggers”, the individuals who saw their building societies turn into banks and who were happy to take the cash windfall? Do we blame/judge them in the same way? And as for the left, if their beloved manufacturing sector had done any good we wouldn’t have been so reliant on financial services for our economy by the 90s anyway.

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